Vital Product Data (VPD) is a collection of configuration and informational data associated with a particular set of hardware or software. Vital Product Data (VPD) includes information such as part numbers, serial numbers, and engineering change levels. Not all components attached to a computing system will provide VPD, but it is often available from Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) and Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) components. Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices also provide similar data, but do not refer to it as VPD. Non-active components of a computer system, such as chassis, cables, pluggable modules, and some planars, contain no active circuitry or transistors onboard and no memory containing VPD to be read by the Integrated Management Module (IMM) for configuration and informational data (e.g., Part Numbers).
VPD data is typically stored on Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM), or other types of memory, on the hardware components, or can be queried through attached I2C or other BUS interfaces. The VPD is used by firmware to determine the nature of the system hardware and to shield the operation of the firmware from minor changes and variations of hardware implementations within a given machine model number.
A computer system board typically includes firmware to provide a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) or alternatively the BIOS, diagnostics code such as Dynamic System Analysis (DSA), and IMM. The IMM works with system firmware (UEFI) to provide system management functions. The basic functionality of the firmware is tailored to the specific system on which it runs.